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Summary and Key Points: In 2009, Defense Secretary Robert Gates capped F-22 Raptor production at 187 aircraft — far below the hundreds originally planned — arguing the stealth fighter was too expensive and irrelevant to the wars the United States was actually fighting.

-The production line shut down permanently in 2011. At the time, the decision was defensible. In hindsight, it was a strategic miscalculation. China has since fielded more than 200 Chengdu J-20 stealth fighters, a number still climbing, while the United States cannot build additional F-22s at any price.

U.S.

On May 25, 2026, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov placed a phone call to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The substance of what Lavrov said in that call has now been confirmed by the Russian Foreign Ministry’s own readout and tracked across multiple Western and Ukrainian outlets. Moscow had decided to begin striking what it called the “decision-making centers” of the Ukrainian government in Kyiv.

Key Points and Summary: Operation Epic Fury against Iran exposed a critical problem: the United States lacks sufficient bombers. With only 19 B-2 Spirit stealth bombers and roughly 45 B-1B Lancers in the fleet, the Air Force found itself short of strike aircraft capable of hitting thousands of hardened Iranian targets including underground missile launchers and nuclear infrastructure.

-The B-21 Raider replacement is still five years from readiness. Rather than let both aircraft retire as planned, the Air Force is now proposing $1.

In 2004, India struck what appeared to be the deal of the century — Russia handed over the Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrier at virtually no cost, desperate to offload a vessel it could no longer afford to maintain. India then invested over $2 billion in upgrades at Russia’s Sevmash shipyard, expecting delivery in 2008. The ship didn’t arrive until 2013. When it finally left Russia for India, it broke down mid-transit. Russian engineers blamed Chinese components. The Indians had no leverage to walk away.

During the 1970s, NASA wanted to conduct supersonic flight tests using the SR-71 Blackbird, but the aircraft’s existence was still classified and the Air Force refused to allow NASA to fly it openly. As a workaround, the Air Force delivered an actual SR-71 — the second production model — to NASA under the false designation YF-12C and assigned it the fictitious serial number 60-6937. NASA flew the aircraft openly at Edwards Air Force Base throughout the decade while officially pretending it was something else entirely.

Summary and Key Points: In March 2013, two Iranian Air Force F-4 Phantom IIs scrambled to intercept an American MQ-1 Predator drone flying surveillance approximately 16 miles off the Iranian coast in international airspace. They did not know that two U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptors operating from a base in the United Arab Emirates were flying escort.

-Lt. Col. Kevin Showtime Sutterfield, an Air Force Reservist flying the lead F-22, eased his aircraft into a position under the lead Iranian F-4 to inspect its weapons loadout — the Iranian pilots never saw him.

UK Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry Luke Pollard confirmed that contracts have been signed under Project Nightfall.

Special operations units might rely on uncrewed glider drones to get resupplied in the near future. At the very least, the concept was put to the test during the largest special operations training exercise in Europe this month.
NATO forces, including elements from Army Special Forces, took part in the Trojan Footprint Exercise. During one part of the exercise, U.S. troops and members of the Romanian Air Force dropped Grasshopper autonomous aerial resupply vehicles from an Alenia C-27J plane over North Macedonia to reach troops on the ground.

Summary and Key Points: China has spent the last decade constructing a full-scale replica of the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier on a weapons range in the Gobi Desert, practicing the tactics and weapons systems needed to destroy it.

-The United States has spent roughly the same period arguing about whether EMALS electromagnetic catapults are worth the maintenance headaches.

China Aircraft Carriers In Focus. Image Credit: X Screenshot.

China New Carrier Type 003 CCTV Screencap Photo.

CV-18 Fujian aircraft carrier from China. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

The Presidential Medal of Freedom is one of the two highest honors the United States can bestow on civilians, and the only one chosen by the President of the United States.. It is usually presented for contributions to the nation or great achievement in a person’s field. Anyone is eligible, and past recipients run the gamut of presidents, popes, and generals, as well as Audrey Hepburn, Ted Williams, and Richard Petty.